When Li Kang finished speaking, the students' reaction wasn't particularly enthusiastic.
Go is actually quite an ambiguous thing. While you could say it's niche, almost everyone in the world knows about it, often seeing people playing chess in films and TV shows, especially period dramas.
And every time you see someone playing chess in these shows, they somehow give off an aura of being awesome, like a big shot.
But if you say it's mainstream, there really aren't that many people who can actually play Go. There's a big difference between knowing how to play Go and just knowing the rules.
Those who only understand the basic rules of life and death, victory and defeat, haven't even entered the door - but these people are actually the majority.
Once you've entered the Go world, you discover that you still can't really play Go, because while you know judgment, sacrifice, territory counting, you don't understand the whole game. Many people give up after realizing this.
After learning to play Go, you discover there's still an incredibly long road ahead before you can play it well.
In short, the waters run deep - it's hard to grasp.
Moreover, this time they'd be playing against a professional player. The outcome was basically guaranteed to be a loss, and a crushing defeat at that. There was no way to show off, so those students who knew how to play Go naturally weren't very interested.
More importantly, during student years, most people are introverts who are generally socially anxious and embarrassed to make public appearances in front of the entire school.
Li Kang seemed to have anticipated the students' reaction, so he cleared his throat and continued: "You don't need to be that good - just knowing how to play is enough."
After pausing, Li Kang dropped his trump card: "If you sign up to participate, you can get fifty conduct points. Of course, those who don't even know how to play Go shouldn't embarrass themselves - don't say I didn't warn you."
With those words, every student in the class lit up, and even Yu Shao felt shamefully tempted.
Returning to age sixteen was fine in every way, except for one thing that caused Yu Shao pain - having to crawl out of bed at 6:30 every morning for morning self-study.
But if there were conduct points, that meant five morning self-study sessions he wouldn't have to attend!!!
"That's it, class dismissed."
After saying this, Li Kang picked up his thermos and turned to leave the classroom.
"Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit! Old Yu, conduct points! I'm tempted!" Zhou De grabbed Yu Shao's sleeve, looking extremely excited. Like Yu Shao, he now only had sixty conduct points left - they were both thrill-seekers.
"You can play Go?" Yu Shao looked at Zhou De in shock, somewhat doubting his own understanding of reality.
"Old Yu, you know me - I'm a jock." Zhou De shook his head and said, "At most I could take the board and smack my opponent to death with it."
What, are you Liu Qi from ancient times? The key to victory lies not only on the board but off it too, is that it?
Yu Shao felt somewhat speechless and asked, "Then why are you so excited?"
"I hate that I don't know how to play Go! Conduct point opportunities are so rare!" Zhou De was full of resentment, wailing: "No one can judge me! I, Zhou De, also want to defeat heaven by half a point!"
"Could you lower your voice a bit?" Yu Shao's ears were nearly numb from Zhou De's shouting.
Suddenly, Zhou De seemed to think of something and said, "But it looks like our school really wants to redeem itself this time."
"What do you mean?" Yu Shao didn't understand and asked in confusion.
"You don't know?" Zhou De immediately became smug and said, "I heard this from my coach - our city's high school Go tournament is about to start."
"You should know that our school won first place three years in a row back then, the three years when Wu Shuheng was here, but after he graduated, each year got worse than the last."
"Last year our school was even ranked near the bottom, losing to several regular high schools. As a key high school, we completely lost face!"
"I heard our school is hosting this time too. If we don't get good results again, we'll really have no face left."
"So I think our school invited Wu Shuheng back this time to boost morale and prepare for the tournament."
There was actually such a thing? Yu Shao was hearing about this for the first time. He had to admit that jocks really did have wide information networks - not only did they know all kinds of gossip, they even knew about things like this.
Just then, Zhou De suddenly exclaimed: "Holy shit, Xu Zijin!"
Yu Shao turned to look, and there was Xu Zijin in her school uniform walking past the window in the corridor. Today she hadn't tied up her hair, and her black hair reached her waist. When the breeze blew, a few strands fluttered, particularly captivating.
Almost all the boys in Class 7 immediately turned their gazes toward the window.
Just then, Xu Zijin seemed to notice something and suddenly stopped, then turned to glance at the Class 7 classroom. Her eyes were clear and bright, as if they could reflect people's images.
All the boys in Class 7 felt their hearts skip a beat.
Mom, do you know? My heart has been shot by Cupid's arrow!
What, you ask who I'd save first if you and Xu Zijin both fell into a river? I'd definitely save you first.
Then I'd jump in and fall into a river of love with her.
But soon, Xu Zijin withdrew her gaze and continued walking, disappearing from the window before long.
After losing sight of Xu Zijin, the boys, who hadn't even been in love, somehow all felt like they'd tasted heartbreak.
"Xu Zijin was looking at me!" Zhou De suddenly had an earth-shattering realization, gripping Yu Shao's sleeve tightly and saying excitedly: "Old Yu, Xu Zijin stopped just now to steal a glance at me!"
"The three great illusions of life: she's stealing glances at me, she likes me, I can make a comeback," Yu Shao kindly reminded him.
"No!" Zhou De said with absolute certainty: "She was definitely stealing a glance at me."
"First, even if Xu Zijin really was looking at you, it wasn't stealing - it was looking openly," Yu Shao corrected. "Second, I'm sitting right next to you. If she was looking at you, wouldn't I know? Bro, don't you really think it's your imagination?"
With Yu Shao putting it this way, Zhou De began to feel uncertain.
"She really wasn't looking at me?"
Yu Shao didn't respond to this.
Because actually, he had also felt that Xu Zijin seemed to indeed glance in his direction.
At this time, the other boys in Class 7 finally came to their senses and immediately started arguing.
"Xu Zijin was looking at me just now!"
"Bullshit, she was obviously looking at me!"
"Damn it, it was me, it was me!"
Now Zhou De finally felt like it might really have been his imagination.
Zhou De sighed dejectedly and said, "Sigh, if only I could sit by the window."
"Why?" Yu Shao was a bit puzzled.
"That way when Xu Zijin walks past the window, I could still smell her fragrance," Zhou De said seriously.
Yu Shao was somewhat baffled and asked, "How do you know she has a fragrance? What if she doesn't?"
"With that face, she definitely has one," Zhou De said earnestly. "Even if she doesn't, just seeing that face makes the air smell sweet."
"Wait, brother, I need to confirm first - are you talking about her face in one sense or her face in another sense? These two meanings are different," Yu Shao emphasized. "If it's the former, then what you're smelling is sweet osmanthus fragrance."
"Old Yu!" Zhou De pointed at Yu Shao with an expression of having been corrupted: "What are you thinking! I'm very pure!"
Yu Shao believed him.
"But Old Zhou, if she really is fragrant, why don't you wish you were in the same class as her instead?" Yu Shao asked.
"Same class?" Zhou De thought about it, then suddenly slapped his thigh in realization: "Right! Same class! Damn, those beasts in Class 6 really should die!"
Zhou De immediately began fantasizing: "If I were in the same class as Xu Zijin... if we were even desk mates... I don't dare imagine it!"
"Trash, I dare to imagine it," Yu Shao immediately looked down on Zhou De's cowardice.
"What?" Zhou De's eyes widened immediately, and he indignantly scolded: "Don't you like Cheng Mengjie? You scumbag!"
Student days had a strange kind of purity - if you liked someone, even if you weren't together with them, you couldn't like anyone else. Unless you had previously issued a disclaimer stating: "I no longer like her."
Otherwise, you were a scumbag.
And his predecessor had firmly told Zhou De that he would continue pursuing Cheng Mengjie.
Brothers, if you think the book is well-written, please bookmark and follow! The genre is very niche, so I hope everyone will support it.